Lightning

Now that is it almost the end of August, storm season is pretty much done for the Calgary area.  One of my favourite things about the summer time is storm watching.  We have been privey to some great lightning shows over the years.  Unfortunately this year we had missed most of the night time shows but there seemed to be an oddly large amount of daytime storms rolling through.

The equipment you need to photograph lightning is a tripod, cable release (not necessary but a good tool to have) and a camera that can shoot in manual (you can probably make due without manual mode but it makes it easier).  Lens wise you want something wide enough to capture and frame the area you want.  Exposure time will be 8 to 15 seconds so it does not need to be fast glass.  The following tutorial by Nick Ulivieri is great for shooting lightning at night.

http://www.nickulivieriphotography.com/blog/lightning/

Since I wasn't having any luck during the night with storms rolling through I started running home after work as the evening storms arrived.  In order to shoot the lightning during daylight I used a variable ND filter to stop down the light to get a long enough shutter speed.  Using a cable release allowed me to hold the shutter down and shoot continuously.  I find it is easier to anticipate lightning at night but during the day I was not having any luck and just fired off shot after shot.  The second (and last) day of the year I tried this I got a little lucky and capture one bolt.

The following was shot with the Fujifilm X-T1, XF 18-55 F2.8-4 lens and a Tiffen 72 mm Variable ND filter.  The settings were ISO 200, F18 and a 3.2 second shutter speed.  This was the only lightning I captured in 2015 and my first daytime photograph.

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August 2015, X-T1, XF 18-55

Fireworks

Every year we are treated to ten straight days of fireworks during the Calgary Stampede.  Our condo balcony overlooks the Saddledome and Stampede grounds giving a pretty decent angle of the nightly stampede fireworks show.  The last few years I feel I have taken the same photos over and over so this time around I my goal was to try to capture them differently.

There are lots of tutorials on the internet/youtube (Try this one), so won't get into the technical details. I shot the first one with the Fuji XF 18-135, the second with the Fuji XF 55-200 and the third with the Rokinon 8mm.

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XF 18-135

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XF 55-200

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Rokinon 8mm

Boston Getaway

We took a quick weekend trip to Boston for Canada day (and Independence day).  We tried to hit all the tourist spots; Red Sox game, pastries in little Italy, walk the Freedom trail, Prudential Centre observation deck and of course the Independence day fireworks.

I love visiting stadiums and Fenway Park has been on my must see list for a while.  We booked a hotel right by Fenway Park called The Verb.  It is a neat boutique hotel that is rock n roll themed.  We booked a pool view room which was pretty cool and decorated in a retro style.  The staff were very helpful.  The area does get very busy during Red Sox games but I think it just adds to the experience.  I would definitely recommend staying their, especially if you plan on going to Fenway for a Red Sox game.

Photo wise, I had envisioned a photo at Fenway of the Boston lettering on the top of the dug out.  To do this I thought it would be best to purchased tickets in the first row behind the dug out.  When we got to our seats I had not expected all the kids and fans trying to get autographs from the players, however once the game got started everybody cleared.  I brought the Rokinon 8mm fish eye to take the shot and I am happy with the results (seen below).  This was my first time watching a game in this good of seats and it was also the first time I actually watched an entire baseball game! It ended up going into extra innings making it almost four hours long.

I had also planned on taking some fireworks shots.  The plan was to head over an hour or so before the show to the Cambridge side of the Charles river.  I was hoping we could walk across the bridge but to our dismay the police had blocked it off.  The only options we had were the crowded promenade or hang back along the freeway and watch through the trees.  We chose the later as it was fairly crowded and would not be conducive to setting up a tripod.  The fireworks lasted for 30 minutes so it gave me some time to try a few things.  I eventually went back to the Rokinon 8mm fish eye and put the tripod behind us to take some images.  It ended up being my favourite from the night.  You can see the rest of the Boston pictures on my Flickr site.  We both loved Boston and hope to have a chance to visit again.